Abstract
The recent translation of De Summa Rerum by G. H. R. Parkinson has done much to revive speculation on the origins of Leibniz’s later metaphysics. Yet although De Summa Rerum is doubtless the most coherent body of Leibniz’s metaphysical writing between the Confessio Philosophi of 1671 and the Discourse of 1686, the thoughts expressed in it frequently seem to be related by dream logic rather than logic — there is a swirl of statements relating to minds, particles, God, and vortices which are highly resistant to systematic interpretation.1 Vortices, for example, are said to be associated with minds, with worlds, and with solid bodies. They do not reappear in such a field of associations, as far as I can determine, ever again: these vortices (unlike the mathematically describable ‘harmonic’ vortices, Leibniz preferred as a better fundamental explanation of planetary orbits than Newtonian gravitation) are true singularities in Leibniz’s theorising. In this paper I shall suggest that they are intended to function as solutions of what I will call the ‘contouring problem’, the problem of finding stable individuals, substances — as opposed to substance — in the spare ontology of the new philosophy. As Leibniz puts the question:
As the mind is something which has a certain relation to some portion of matter, then it must be stated why it extends itself to this portion and not to all adjacent portions; or, why it is that some body, and not every body, belongs to it in the same way.2
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For a previous approach to this problem, see G. H. R. Parkinson, `Leibniz’s De Summa Rerum: A Systematic Approach’, SL 18 (1986): 132–51.
Notes on Science and Metaphysics’, A VI iii 393: PDSR 45.
Whether Leibniz can be seen as a `Spinozist’ is a matter of emphasis, attribution, and relevant comparisons. If Leibniz’s focus on individuation is thought to be more important than his focus on perspectival harmony, he is not Spinozistic. If his references to creation by emanation are more properly described as Neo-platonic or as Scholastic, he is not Spinozistic. If the relevant contrast-class is given by Locke and Descartes, he is Spinozistic. Relevant discussions include Georges Friedmann, Leibniz et Spinoza, (2nd edition, Paris: Gallimard, 1962); Aaron Gurwitsch, Leibniz und den Panlogismus (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974); Catherine Wilson, Leibniz’s Metaphysics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), pp. 280–1, et passim: R. M. Adams, Leibniz: Determinist, Idealist,Theist (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 126–30; pp. 157 ff.; G. H. R. Parkinson, `Leibniz’s Paris Writings in relation to Spinoza’, SL Supp. 18 (1978): 73–91; Mark Kulstad, `Did Leibniz incline towards Monistic Pantheism in 1676?’, Leibniz und Europa. Proceedings of the Vlth International Leibniz-Kongress (Hanover, 1994), pp. 424–8, and `Leibniz’s De Summa Rerum: the Origin of the Variety of Things, in Connection with the Spinoza-Tschirnhaus Correspondence’, SL Sond. (1997).
L 196.
Leibniz, On Transubstantiation,’ in A VI i 509: L 116.
AVIi511:L118.
A VI i 512:L 119.
Marsilio Ficino, Opera I 531, quoted in Brian P. Copenhaver, `Astrology and Magic’, in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. Quentin Skinner, Eckhard Kessler and Jill Kraye (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 264–301.
`On the Origin of Things from Forms’, PDSR 77; A VI iii 518.
TMark Kulstad, `Leibniz’s De Summa Rerum: the Origin of the Variety of Things’.
`That a Perfect Being is Possible’, in PDSR 93–5; A VI iii 573–4. Adams’ subtle gloss on this passage confirms that Leibniz could not fully accept an ontological distinction between the creator and the created and creation of the latter in orthodox fashion ex nihilo. Adams, Leibniz, p. 130–1. Cf. C. Wilson, Leibniz’s Metaphysics pp. 275–81.
`Notes on Science and Metaphysics’, A VI iii 391: PDSR 43.
I term a `perfection’ every simple quality which is positive and absolute, or, which expresses without any limits whatever it does express.“ (A VI iii 577: PDSR 99).
Notes on Science and Metaphysics’, A VI iii 392: PDSR 45.
’A Most Perfect Being Exists’, A VI iii 572–3: PDSR 91–3.
On Leibniz and Hobbes, see Ferdinand Tönnies, ‘Leibniz und Hobbes’, in Studien zur Philosophie und Gesellschaftslehre im 17. Jahrhundert, ed. E. G. Jacoby (Stuttgart-Bad-Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1975), 151–68; Konrad Moll, ‘Die erste Monadenkonzeption von Leibniz und ihr Ausgangspunkt in Conatus-Begriff und Perzeptionstheorie von Thomas Hobbes’, Proceedings of the Vth International Leibniz-Kongress, Hanover, 1988; H. M. Bernstein, ‘Conatus, Hobbes and the Young Leibniz’, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 11 (1980): 25–37; Jeffrey Barnouw, ‘The Separation of Reason and Faith in Bacon and Hobbes and Leibniz’s Theodicy’:,Journal of the History of Ideas 42 (1981): 607–28.
Preface to an Edition of Nizolius’, in L 124: G IV 143.
Letter to Herman Conring, L 189: G I 196–7.
Spragens, The Politics of Motion (Lexington, University Press of Kentucky, 1973), p. 73.
Thomas Hobbes, De Corpore in English Works ed. W. Molesworth (London: Bohn, 1939), De Corpore, Works,I 414.
Ibid., 1 426.
Ibid., 1 530.
Ibid., I 399.
Ibid., I 391–2.
There are living creatures so small we can scarcely see their whole bodies, “yet even these have their young ones; their little veins and other vessels, and their eyes so small as that no microscope can make them visible.” We cannot imagine any magnitude so small but that our very supposition is exceeded by nature. Ibid., I 446.
Ethics, Pt. II, Prop. 17, Collected Works of Spinoza I 464.
Ethics, Pt II, Prop. 12, Collected Works of Spinoza I 456.
Ethics, Pt. II, Prop. 10, Collected Works of Spinoza I 454.
Ethics, Pt II, Prop. 13, Axiom 3, Collected Works of Spinoza I 460.
Ethics, Pt II, Prop. 13, Lemma 4, Cf. Lemma 7, Collected Works of Spinoza I 461.
Ethics, Pt II, Prop. 13, Lemma 7, Collected Works of Spinoza I 461–2.
Ethics, Pt. II, Prop. 11, Corollary, Collected Works of Spinoza 1 456.
Ethics, Pt. II, Prop. 13, Collected Works of Spinoza I 457.
Ethics, Pt. II, Prop. 13, Scholium, Collected Works of Spinoza I 458.
`On Truths, the Mind, God and the Universe’, A VI iii 510: PDSR 61.
`On the Union of Soul and Body’, A VI iii 480–1: PDSR 35–6.
`On the Origin of Things from Forms’, A VI iii 519: PDSR 77.
`On the Plenitude of the World’, A VI iii 524: PDSR 85.
`On the Union of Soul and Body’, A VI iii 480–1: PDSR 35–6.
Leibniz, Hypothesis physica nova, A V ii 223.
`On the Plenitude of the World’, A VI iii 525: PDSR 89.
`On the Secrets of the Sublime’, A VI iii 476–7: PDSR 31.
`On Truths, the Mind, God, and the Universe’, A VI iii 509–10: PDSR 61.
`On the Union of Soul and Body’, A VI iii 480: PDSR 35.
`Excerpts from Notes on Science and Metaphysics’, A VI iii 393: PDSR 47.
`On the Secrets of the Sublime’, A VI iii 474: PDSR 25.
`On the Union of Soul and Body’, A VI iii 480: PDSR 37.
`On the Plenitude of the World’, A VI iii 525: PDSR 87.
`On the Origin of Things from Forms’, A VI iii 521: PDSR 81.
Thomas Hobbes, Thomas White’s De Mundo Examined, trans. H. W. Jones (London: Bradford University Press, 1976), p. 254.
Ethics Pt II, Prop. 13 Axiom 3, Lemma 4, Collected Works of Spinoza I 460–1.
`On the Secrets of the Sublime’, A VI iii 474–5: PDSR 27.
Ibid.
`On the Origin of Things from Forms’, A VI iii 518: PDSR 75.
`On Truths, the Mind, God, and the Universe’, PDSR 61: A VI iii 510.
Ibid., A VI iii 510: PDSR 63.
J. T. Barnouw, ‘Hobbes’s Psychology of Thought’, History of European Ideas 10 (1989): 519–45.
Ethics, Pt. IV, Props. XX-XXV: Collected Works of Spinoza I 557–9.
This image can properly be regarded both as a prefiguring of the doctrine of `world-apart’ monads and of the Theodicy’s influential theory of creative activity as the artist’s imitation of divine creation.
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Wilson, C. (1999). Atoms, Minds and Vortices in De Summa Rerum: Leibniz vis-à-vis Hobbes and Spinoza. In: Brown, S. (eds) The Young Leibniz and his Philosophy (1646–76). International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Idées, vol 166. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3507-0_11
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